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Text: Tu Lao Hat
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introduction
In 1982, the Falklands War broke out, but after only 74 days of fighting, Argentina declared defeat and gave the Falklands to Britain.
This is a war that took place on Argentina's doorstep, the Falklands are only 600 kilometers from Argentina, and more than 10,000 kilometers from Britain, so how did Argentina lose this war?
1. The Falklands dispute
The Falklands are actually an archipelago, the full name is the Venus Islands, with a total area of 12,200 square kilometers, and there are only more than 2,000 inhabitants in the entire archipelago.
Speaking of the Falklands dispute, it can be said that they are all the sequelae left by the European powers vying for colonies, France, Britain, and Spain have occupied the Falklands, and even Argentina was once a colony of Spain. But then Argentina became independent, and the country has always regarded the Falklands, a few hundred kilometers from its own, as its own territory and asserted its sovereignty.
Britain occupied the island from the 40s of the 19th century and declared it its colony in 1895, but Argentina was adamantly opposed to this and insisted on its sovereignty over the island.
After World War II, Britain and Argentina have been arguing over the sovereignty of the Falklands, and the two sides have referred the issue to the United Nations, but the United Nations has only mediated between them.
(Falklands)
At the end of the 70s, the Argentine military junta was in power, the economy was in shambles, and corruption was rampant, and ordinary people constantly launched demonstrations and protests. In 1981, Galtieri staged a coup d'état, seized power, and became president of Argentina.
Galtieri tried to solve the economic difficulties, so he implemented "shock therapy", and the result really turned the economy into shock, with inflation soaring by 600%, GDP plummeting by 11.4%, followed by a sharp increase in unemployment and a sharp drop in people's living standards. Domestic contradictions are rapidly intensifying.
(Galtieri)
Galtieri was under tremendous pressure, and he came up with a "good idea" to fight the Falklands War and recover the Falklands from the British. If he can recover the Falklands, first, he can transfer the internal contradictions, and second, he will be able to recover the territory, and he will naturally be able to offset the responsibility of incompetence in governing the country.
In 1982, Galtieri ordered Argentine troops to land on the Falklands. In the early morning of April 2, 4,000 Afghan soldiers entered Stanley, the capital of the Falklands, and the British defenders had only a pitiful 200 men, which were no match for the Afghan army at all, so the British only symbolically resisted for a while, and then raised their hands and surrendered.
The Argentine army easily recovered the Falklands, and the whole country of Argentina rejoiced. But in distant Britain, it's a different story. When the news of the island's loss reached Britain, the whole country was shocked, because after all, it was once the number one empire on earth, so how could it swallow such a breath! Prime Minister Thatcher submitted a report to parliament on the seizure of the island by force as soon as possible, that is, the day after the incident.
(Margaret Thatcher)
April 3 is Saturday, which is traditionally a day of recess. Because of the importance of the matter, the parliament had to convene the members of parliament to discuss Thatcher's report. Eventually, Parliament approved Thatcher's report, which meant that Britain was going to fight a war for the island.
Second, the course of the war
On April 3, Britain formed a wartime cabinet, and it has to be said that the British were efficient enough.
During the war, the Cabinet immediately organized forces to prepare for war against Argentina, which was 10,000 kilometers away. The Cabinet mobilized two-thirds of the Royal Navy's forces to form a task force. The fleet consists of 2 aircraft carriers, 2 nuclear submarines and more than 40 other ships. Britain also dispatched 270 aircraft and more than 9,000 troops.
(Aircraft carriers in the task force)
In addition, Britain has a large logistical supply fleet of 58 transport ships, all of which are temporary requisitioned merchant ships.
Argentina's military strength is as follows: the navy has 22 ships of various types, including an aircraft carrier, 370 aircraft, and an army of 13,000 troops.
On 25 April, the British first launched an attack on South Georgia, which was home to more than 1,000 Afghan Army soldiers. As soon as they heard the sound of gunfire, the Afghan soldiers lost their fighting spirit, and after the British rushed up, they immediately chose to surrender. This battle fully exposed the inferior military quality of the Afghan army.
The British Navy relied on naval superiority to first blockade the waters within 200 nautical miles around the Falklands, and Argentine ships had to operate outside the blockade zone. On May 2, the British nuclear submarine "Conqueror" locked on one of the cruisers of the Argentine army, the "General Belgrano". The cruiser is a second-hand item bought by Argentina from the United States and is an old ship from the Second World War era.
The "Conqueror" sank the old ship with three torpedoes, and all the more than 1,000 officers and men on board fell into the water, only more than 700 people were rescued, and more than 300 officers and men died at the bottom of the sea.
The Argentine Navy suffered a big loss, and knowing the power of the British nuclear submarines, in order to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past, the Argentine Navy ships had no choice but to retreat into the military port and never dare to go to war again. This was tantamount to ceding sea supremacy to Britain.
In the future war, almost all of them relied on the support of the Afghan air force.
To say that the Afghan Air Force is really unambiguous. At that time, although there were three airfields on the Falklands, none of them could take off fighters, and the Afghan Air Force had to take off from the mainland to participate in the war, so the time for the Afghan Air Force planes to stay in the air was seriously limited, especially in the later period, when the British troops surrounded the Falklands and deployed anti-aircraft firepower, the Afghan Air Force planes had to break through the British fire blockade if they wanted to fly over the Falklands.
On 1 May, the Afghan Air Force organized 36 aircraft to launch a massive attack on the British fleet.
The British army soon discovered the Argentine aircraft group and immediately took off the Sea Harrier fighter plane from the aircraft carrier to intercept it, but the planes of the two armies flew at different altitudes, the Argentine planes flew high, and the British planes flew low, so the two armies did not immediately start an air battle.
Two Afghan Mirage fighters bravely dived down to prepare to confront the British, but they were hit by British missiles, one fell on the spot, and the other was wounded and planned to make a forced landing in Stanley, but was hit by the Argentine army's own artillery fire and crashed.
(Phantom Fighter)
Only two Afghan warplanes spotted the British warship during the sortie, which was shelling the Afghan army on the island at that time. The two warplanes attacked it and quickly returned home, but they could not fight due to the time they were in the air.
In this attack, the Afghan pilots inadvertently discovered a secret, that is, with the help of ultra-low-altitude flight, they could evade the British radar, and when the plane approached the British target, it quickly pulled up and launched a surprise attack on it, and often received an excellent strike effect.
On 4 May, during an attack launched by the Afghan Air Force, a Exocet missile launched by a "Super Banner" fighter plane hit the British warship "Sheffield," a 4,000-ton destroyer, which burned for six days and then sank, killing and wounding more than 40 officers and men.
The Exocet missiles were purchased by Argentina from France, and the French secretly gave Britain the technical parameters of Exocet, which greatly improved the efficiency of electronic jamming. Therefore, the British army quickly gained air supremacy.
But the Afghan Air Force did not give up the fight. On 25 May, two "Super Flags" launched an attack on a British aircraft carrier. The Afghan fighters first flew at an ultra-low altitude and quickly increased their attack range.
(Super Flag Fighter)
The two fighters each fired a Exocet and then turned around and withdrew. One of the two Exocets was lost after being interfered with, and the other, although it also missed, hit a British 18,000-ton transport ship loaded with a large number of military supplies, including five helicopters. The transport ship caught fire after being shot and sank three days later.
On 30 May, two Super Flags launched an attack on the British aircraft carrier USS Invincible, this time again striking Exocet. According to Argentine sources, the "Invincible" was seriously damaged after being shot, but the British said that it was unscathed. However, judging by the subsequent drastic reduction in the sorties of British fighters, the news from the Argentine side is closer to the truth.
In this war, the Argentine fighters suffered heavy losses, but they also achieved brilliant results, sinking 5 British ships and damaging 4.
In contrast, the Afghan Army pulled its crotch a lot. On May 21, after the British army of 4,000 troops landed on the main island, follow-up troops arrived one after another. Although the Afghan Air Force bombed the British troops and the British fleet that had landed, they could not stop the British advance after all.
The British landing force planned to take Darwin and Guthgreen first, and then Stanley at the end. The course of the war was basically according to the British script, and the British army quickly took the first two strongholds, and on June 11, the British army launched a general attack on Stanley. The two armies fought fiercely for three days, and the British army captured the last line of defense of the Afghan army.
With the collapse of the defensive line, the psychological defense line of the Afghan army also quickly collapsed, and the Afghan soldiers were full of frustration and had no fighting spirit. In the end, the Afghan army had to surrender to the British, and the entire Falklands War was declared over. The Falklands were again taken away by the British.
3. Why Argentina lost
This war was fought on Argentina's doorstep, and it was provoked by Argentina, so it stands to reason that Argentina should be fully prepared, so why did Argentina surrender in humiliation after only 74 days of fighting?
First of all, Argentina launched the war in the face of serious intensification of internal contradictions, and it was not well prepared. On the other hand, although Britain was on the side of the war, because the whole country had to maintain the face of the British Empire, on the one hand, it had high morale and shared the same hatred for the enemy, and on the other hand, it had made full mobilization in both military and logistical aspects.
(Fully equipped British Army)
Second, in terms of military strength, the navy and air force played a very important role, and the British navy blocked the waters around the Falklands when it went up, while the Argentine navy did not even dare to come out of the port in the later period. Although the Afghan Air Force was very heroic, it did not fight for air supremacy in the end, and Britain controlled the sea and air supremacy, and thus grasped the initiative in the war. The Afghan army only has a numerical superiority and its combat effectiveness is very low.
Third, Argentina relies heavily on the United States, France, and other Western countries for weapons and ammunition, and although the United States and France are ostensibly neutral, they are actually biased towards Britain. For example, as mentioned earlier, France handed over the technical parameters of the Flying Fish to the British army, so that the Flying Fish could not exert its due power.
(Exocet missile)
Although the United States is friendly with Argentina on the surface, it cannot be better than the relationship between the United States and Britain. As long as the United States does not help Argentina, it will be difficult for the American-style equipment purchased by Argentina to be effective.
So Argentina's defeat is almost doomed.
More than 40 years have passed since the Falklands War, and it has left a profound lesson for the world, especially for the mainland: Fighting a war is not a child's play, and it is necessary to have a reputation for one's own division, but also not to fight a war for which we are unprepared, still less for which we are uncertain.
Resources:
Knowledge is Power, 2013(8):74-75.
LING Guocun. "The Fall of the Island: The Battle of the Anglo-Argentine Island." Encyclopedia: Aerospace 11 (2015): 4.